Mangrove Squeeze(77)

The office, over-bright in lights that should have been turned off, was just very slightly, even daintily, trashed. A couple of potted plants had been turned onto their sides, not smashed but tipped; they lay pathetic as flipped turtles, soil spilling on the floor. Papers and brochures were scattered here and there, and the counter itself had been scarred with a jagged, spiteful slash of a knife. Yet, as far as the woman who did the breakfast could tell, nothing had been taken. Random mischief, she decided. An angry kid; a blackout drunk. An unfortunate and unmeaningful visitation.

Bewildered but not yet afraid, she went through the doorway behind the desk, which led on toward the kitchen. In the sitting room that no one ever seemed to use were the remnants of a not quite finished meal. There was something disturbing, something pending and glum about the abandoned dinner. Low pools of wine sat in the bottoms of two glasses; sauce streaked plates like brush strokes. Knives and forks were arrayed in gesturing positions, as if the hands that had put them down had planned on coming back, and were prevented.

The rumpled settee spoke of sudden absence, of weightless abduction. Beyond the curtained window it was still dark, and the stubbornly lingering night called up the primitive terror that there would come a time when the mechanisms of the world would stall, and the sun would fail to rise.

Spooked now, the woman who did the breakfast went into the kitchen, put the lights on as bright as they would go, and tried to beat down her unease with work. When she filled the coffee urn with water, the sound was mournful and hollow, like a splash from deep down at the bottom of a well.

In the mint green tiled house on Key Haven, Bert the Shirt also woke well ahead of dawn. Propped on pillows, he listened to the cooing of doves, the more distant squawk of seagulls. He wanted to get up and make his oatmeal. That was his routine, and routine was vastly important to him; but he was afraid he'd wake his housemate.

He needn't have worried. Sam, lying in a narrow bed on the other side of a thin wall, had been awake for quite a while, or at least he thought he had. Sleeping and waking—for him the states grew ever less distinct. Sleep gained in truth as waking lost the arrogance of certainty. Dreams, three-D and portentous, sported a logic no less satisfactory than that of what, by mere consensus, was called the real. Categories dissolved; things floated free of their names, and a kind of geriatric Buddhism became ever more unquestioned and serene.

At length it was the sound of the dog's paws clicking on the tiled floor that made the two old men confess they were awake.

They got up, put on their baggy bathrobes, and had their cereal. Breakfast eaten, they waged slow and labored campaigns in their respective bathrooms. By the time they were ready to venture out to walk the dog, the clouds had burned away and the sun had topped the trees.

Outside, the streets were bright and vacant. Bert carried a thin pink leash but he didn't put it on; the old chihuahua wasn't going anywhere. It ticked along stiffly, very near its master's shuffling shoes, stopping now and then to lift a leg just slightly. White eyes squinting, the dog toiled to pass urine; mere drops, slow and pendant as the outfall from a runny nose, formed one by one at the tip of its wizened pecker, then broke and dribbled down a blade of grass.

Bert shook his head. "Fuckin' age," he said. "Dog used to be quite the little stud."

Dubious, Sam said nothing.

"Jaunty," Bert went on. "Confident. Did he know he weighed t'ree pounds? Did it stop 'im that his wang was smaller than a cocktail frank? Bullshit. He humped Rottweilers, this guy. Chased away Dobermans. In his heart he was Rin Tin fuckin' Tin."

Don Giovanni knew when he was being talked about. Slowly, creakily, he raised his head. His hoary whiskers drooped in their dry and scaly follicles, his smeared and futile eyes panned through glare and shadow.

They strolled. At the end of their block, they took a low bridge that crossed over the canal. In the thick green water, bits of weed floated dreamily on sluggish current.

On the opposite side, Sam looked down the street and saw a snazzy blue car in the driveway of the dull gray house where the unfriendly Russian lived. The house and the car just didn't match, and Sam fiddled with his hearing aid. "Our neighbor," he said. "You think he'd drive a car like that?"

Bert sized up the Camaro. Tinted windows, extra chrome, tire skirts. The only excuse for having a car like that was youth. "Son, maybe."

Sam pushed out his lips. "Or maybe somebody who works for him."

"Works for him, like cleans, like gardens?"

"Works for him like works for him," said Sam. "Who knows? Maybe, like, a criminal guy, he has to report to headquarters."